Two of the U.S. largest’s honey processing companies have admitted to illegally buying millions of dollars of cheap honey from China. Like the scandal about incorrectly labeled meat in Europe, the charges against the U.S. honey packs are a case of misleading, if not simply deceptive, labeling of food.

As Eric Wenger, chairman of True Source Honey, tells NPR, “This is a huge deal for the industry. This is the first admission by a U.S. packer, the actual user.”

The Case of the Doctored Honey

The two companies charged are Groeb Farms of Onsted, Michigan, and Honey Solutions, a large industrial supplier of honey based in Baytown, Texas. Also charged are five individuals including Douglas A. Murphy, the former director of sales for Honey Holding, which did business under the name of Honey Solutions. Both companies face criminal charges and have already struck deals (including agreeing to setting up programs to ensure all of their honey comes from legitimate producers in the future) to avoid immediate prosecution.

Starting in 2001, honey from China has been subjected to stringent “anti-dumping” duties — a hefty 221 percent of the declared value — after U.S. honey makers raised an outcry over Chinese imports that were being sold at suspiciously low prices. As the recent suit reveals, Chinese producers have sought to work around these fees by shipping their honey to middlemen in other countries including Mongolia, Thailand and Vietnam. There, the honey is relabeled as originating from those countries and sent onto the U.S.

Honey imported by Groeb Farms and Honey Solutions was also shipped in containers labeled as other products, such as rice syrup. Even more, some of the honey was found to be adulterated with antibiotics that are not approved for use in honey in the U.S. One drug, Chloramphenicol, is used to treat serious infections in humans but is not approved for use in honey; in 2002, the FDA issued an import alert about i

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